James Bracey hits double hundred as Gloucestershire break records against youthful Somerset

Gloucestershire's final total of 454 for 3 was the seventh-highest in List A history, while Bracey's unbeaten 224 was the 11th-highest ever in the format

Bristol: Gloucestershire 454-3, Somerset 256 - Gloucestershire win by 198 runs

James Bracey smashed an unbeaten 224, the highest List A score in Gloucestershire history – and the 11th-highest of all time – to set up a 198-run rout of Somerset.

Somerset, whose young side were taken for 244 by Prithvi Shaw earlier in the week, were powerless against a remarkable assault from Bracey, who was well supported by Chris Dent (65 off 38 balls), Ollie Price (77 off 83 balls), Harry Tector (37 off 17 balls) and Graeme van Buuren (35 off 12 balls) as Gloucestershire, who have endured an abject season, racked up the seventh-highest List A total ever.

Only Ali Brown, with his 268 for Surrey in 2002, and Shaw on Wednesday for Northamptonshire have ever made a higher List A score in England than Bracey, whose reputation isn't necessarily as a white-ball dasher.

But he batted through 50 overs, hitting 30 fours and five sixes, dealing in crisp strikes over long-off and a range of sweeps, paddles, ramps and reverse-ramps. The two-time England wicketkeeper has struggled for runs this summer – this was his first century of 2023 – and the first double hundred of his career, taking his List A average above 50 in the process.

He faced 151 balls – virtually half the innings – as records fell frequently at Bristol.

^{Somerset have toiled in the field (Harry Trump/Getty Images)}

Gloucestershire's final total of 454 for 3 was also the fourth-highest made on English soil, bettered only by Surrey – ironically against Gloucestershire in 2007, when Brown once again starred, England in their one-time world record hammering of Australia at Trent Bridge, and India A in a tour game against Leicestershire in 2018, when Shaw was once more in the runs.

Indeed, Gloucestershire – who whacked 82 runs in the last four overs – have only made a higher score than this in the County Championship once this season.

For Somerset, who were bowled out for 256 in response, this was a second brutal hammering in the space of a week, missing almost the entirety of their Blast lineup to The Hundred so forced to resort to untested youngsters.

Northamptonshire, led by Shaw's antics, made 415 for 8 against a similar Somerset attack. But this time, they didn't even have the experience of Jack Brooks to fall back on, with 17-year-old left-arm seamer JT Langridge picking up the wicket of Tector on his way to conceding 95 runs in eight overs, with van Buuren particularly severe on the youngster at the death.

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